Oliver Stone treads softly in 'W.'

NEW YORK: Imagine these fantastical sequences from "W.," the Oliver Stone portrayal of President George W. Bush: The president is not alone with his dogs when he chokes on a pretzel and tumbles from the sofa; Saddam Hussein is in the White House family quarters with him. Later Bush flies over Baghdad on a magic carpet as the bombs rain down. And finally Hussein returns for another cameo, this time to shout insults at the president and his father. These depictions would hardly be a reach for a director who is fond of monkeying with history. In "JFK" Stone suggested that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a cabal of gay anti-Communists. In "Nixon" he made that president so epically loathsome that even his Irish setter turned on him. But "W." contains no airborne Bush; Stone cut the scene. And the pretzel incident has... [read full story]